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Hello readers!! I am Sreyashi Saha, a to-be-fourthie in the Chemical Engineering Department, additionally pursuing a minor in Computer Science and Engineering. I recently completed my internship at Deutsche Bank Center, Mumbai in their Investment Banking Division.
Hello! I am Prapti Kumar, a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Chemical Engineering Department. A year ago, I was exactly in your shoes; scrambling to read through these blogs and trying to figure out how I should proceed with the intern season preparation. Before Sreyashi dives into her internship experience, I’m going to a quick overview of my intern season selection process with DB.
The Selection Process by Prapti:
During my first 2 years in insti, I explored finance and technology (and especially, a mix of both) through certain projects and workshops. This piqued my interest in the field of finance, and its interface with technology, and I had set my priority on the Finance profile. I was open to exploring and making the best of the intern season, despite no prior corporate experience. I began talking to seniors, getting a basic understanding of the kind of roles that open up for us, and then shortlisting what I was interested in and possibly might be a fit for.
“And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.”
-Michael Scott, The Office
The initial days of intern season were just resume refining and signing a lot of IAFs, followed by tests. DB comes to hire for the Summer Analyst role in the Fixed Income and Currencies Division. Their selection procedure starts with a situational judgment test, followed by a resume shortlist.
Now, Day 1 came and I had no interviews to look forward to. I did get shortlisted in 2 FMCG firms- but couldn’t make it to the final rounds. As I was sitting around crying about no other shortlists and interviews, little did I know what was coming my way. Just when all hope was lost,
I was in! Got an extended shortlist at 11:15 PM in the night, with the interviews starting at 8 am in the morning. I was ecstatic but also incredibly nervous. In a haze, I pulled an all-nighter, prepped for the interviews and finally made an HR Doc.
(Pro tip: 1. ALWAYS make an HR doc, shortlist or no shortlist – this will help you in gaining clarity on a lot of things 2. Do resume prep. You should be thorough with everything in the resume). The next day flew by quickly, with 3 back-to-back interviews and a lot of suspense, the results were announced at midnight and I was elated to have been selected in the field of my preference!
The first 2 rounds of the interview process (each around 30-40 minutes) were technical, based on my resume and the projects written in it. I was also asked a few questions about economics and statistics, whereas my friends were also asked guesstimates. A quick suggestion here - most finance firms do not expect any knowledge of finance from the candidates, but if you do end up listing some jargon in your resume, make sure you are well-versed with it and needless to say, exude confidence! This was followed by an HR round, which was a very pleasant discussion on my co-curricular pursuits.
The internship lasted for about 2 months and personally, it was my first in-office experience. DB Center is located in Nirlon Knowledge Park in Goregaon and the campus is amazing - with a wide array of eateries to kill those hunger pangs, if you are a food junkie!
So the internship kicks off with an induction session followed by one week of training, wherein we are given an overview of possibly all fundamental concepts in finance that we might require in our projects - from Accounting Fundamentals to Derivatives, at the end of which a test is conducted - to evaluate our understanding of the topics taught. Not to forget all this, while we are given a one week stay at The Leela Palace in Mumbai! (I guess one of the many perks of working in an IB) During this time, we are also allotted our desks and the projects that we would be working on for the course of the next two months. Additionally, every intern is also allotted a mentor and a buddy to provide them any help they need - from navigating the tech stack to general career advice! In a nutshell, DB provides a strong support system to every intern to ensure that they make the most of the internship experience.
The Internship Experience by Sreyashi:
I interned at the CPM Desk (Counterparty Portfolio Management) which is a part of the Rates and FX Desk of the FIC (Fixed Income and Currencies) Division of DBC. So to give a background, CPM involves hedging primarily, the CVA and FVA risks associated with various portfolios of the bank. My project was basically to design and test a strategy that would hedge the FVA risk associated with the Rates portfolio at DB. Usually every intern is allotted a different desk and even if the desks are overlapping, the nature of the projects are completely different - and I believe, this is to acquaint us with the working of the various desks at DBC (Global Credit Trading, Global Emerging Markets, etc. to name a few) and give us an insight into not only the various divisions at DB but also the different businesses.
So coming to the work aspect of the internship, getting started on the project most certainly involved a steep learning curve - as most of us did not have a proper finance background. However, my project manager, mentors and everyone else at the desk were extremely helpful and would address any queries I had, from time to time. The CPM team primarily sits in London, which is why my work hours were aligned with London time. The approach that I took was to first understand the current hedging strategies in place, analyze their historical performances and figure out what exactly is the new strategy supposed to solve. It was surely a herculean task, but my onshore supervisor provided some direction every now and then, which allowed me to have a sense of clarity. True to the myths surrounding an IB, sometimes I would have to put in the extra hours as and when my project required it but it paid off well in the end. Needless to say, the gallons of coffee I downed along with occasional chats with my fellow interns and employees at DBC - were a savior at such times :)
The best part of the whole experience was getting a first-hand exposure to this dynamic world of finance. As someone who had no prior work experience in this industry, I was skeptical of how much of an impact I would be able to create, given that I would have to learn and implement parallelly in such a short period of time. (Yes, two months can never be enough to even know about an inkling in the huge world of finance!). However, the culture at DB is what I strongly feel, made it possible for me to grow immensely over the period of the last two months - both intellectually and as a person. I was given sufficient ownership of my project which I think made me technically more sound. DB highly speaks of a people-forward culture and despite being an intern, we were always treated just like the employees and our opinions and concerns were always taken into consideration. I truly could not have asked for a better way to spend the summers!
I was pretty excited about an offline corporate experience, and the overall experience was amazing, to say the least. We had induction sessions in the first week, where we were introduced to the functioning of the investment bank and were also extensively trained in finance concepts. So if you have no prior experience/exposure to finance, do not worry-us being engineers, are not expected to have a background in finance, and are trained on the concepts during the internship itself. What is definitely needed is enthusiasm to learn and the curiosity to know. The internship was for 8 weeks and gave us good exposure to what a career in finance and investment banking looks like.
All the interns were allotted a diverse range of projects, and it was great to see the varied functions and roles in the office. I was aligned with the Structured Credit Trading desk here and worked on helping the desk capitalise on certain market opportunities. The project allotted to me was very engaging, and I had a great learning experience working on the same.
A word of advice to my readers out there - as someone who has been through the perils of the internship season myself, I understand that it is extremely difficult to handle rejection at the stage of life we’re in. However, remember that it is never a reflection of your capabilities or skills or for that matter who you are as a person. It just means that there is something else better aligned with your strengths and all you have to do is never lose faith in yourself and keep trying! Wishing you all the very best for your intern season and feel free to reach out for any queries!
Takeaways:
There are a huge number of opportunities this institute provides us with, and FOMO is something you’ll always feel. What you should do is identify opportunities that seem interesting and a right fit for you, let this time be a great learning experience. I would like to encourage all of you to remain hopeful and cheer up even though all might seem stressful at times. Remember to focus on what's in your control and let go of what isn’t. Support your friends, and help everyone out; they're all in the same boat as you. Also, feel free to approach any of the seniors, we are all ready to help you through the process in all ways we can! :D
Trust the process, and just do your best!!
Best of luck for the season, hope this post provided you with a bit of hope. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions! :)